Gathering the Light- While Many are Still Far From Home

A Song in Translation

I created this video approximately 10 months ago. The reality the song speaks of— a husband/father suddenly leaving his home on that Simchat Torah and not returning home for weeks on end— may seem like a "months-old situation", but it is actually not old at all. Though many of Israel's reservists have returned home, the war continues, and the pain of so many families, especially the hostages' families, and the families whose loved ones have died and will never return, remains. And all the while, I see many of my neighbors' husbands returning to reserve duty, most for the third or fourth time. Their reality is the reality of many.

And yet this song, by a husband-wife duo, encourages us to grab bits of light. The Hebrew actually speaks of "gathering the stars," but in order to keep the rhyme I've changed 'stars' to 'light.' Gathering stars asks us to look up, to look beyond us, to look afar-- for even is we can’t see light in front of us, here we can access the light that we otherwise might not. This is work we must do- each and everyone us- in order to know that what is right now is not the end of this story.

Click to see the Youtube video with my creative English translation. I share here only the link in order to assure that any proceeds from the song remain with the artists where they belong. You can see the artists’ original music video here.